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TfL Rail to Reading - no Oyster so no Railcards?

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bb21

bb21

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island said:
If your old Oyster card has under £10 and no Travelcards on it, you can just buy a new Oyster card and refund the old one at an MFM (a ticket machine at a tube station that accepts banknotes).
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I'd say if you could deal with it online, then do that.

I had a rather inconvenient experience recently trying to refund a surplus Oyster at such a machine, which cancelled the card then froze, rebooted, and reset itself, without giving me anything. It took station staff a while to fetch an old-fashioned pad for me to complete, then promptly handing over the correct amount in cash. According to them, it happens rather frequently.
 
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Acton1991

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Just went to renew my monthly season ticket from SLO - Zones 3 to 6, and the ticket office advised it now has to be a paper ticket as they are doing some work on the contactless systems is zones 1-6 so GWR Touch cannot be used.

Any ideas whether this is related to TfL taking over in December?
 
mattdickinson

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harleyilott said:
Just went to renew my monthly season ticket from SLO - Zones 3 to 6, and the ticket office advised it now has to be a paper ticket as they are doing some work on the contactless systems is zones 1-6 so GWR Touch cannot be used.

Any ideas whether this is related to TfL taking over in December?
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Chiltern Railways are offering Slough to London Travelcards on their smart card.
 
TrainTube

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Hadders said:
I'm guessing that one issue with Oyster is what do about the charge for incomplete journeys? At the moment an incomplete journey is about £8 (I think) but this significantly undercuts the fare to Reading meaning that it'd be cheaper to not touch out! You could set the charge for an incomplete journey higher but then that could be disproportionate to someone just making a journey between two adjacent stations in the suburbs.

Then there's the question of minimum balances. How much credit would be needed on an Oyster card when you start a journey to Reading? At the moment you only require sufficient credit to get as far as the next station but this would be insufficient in you touch in with a couple of quid on your card and then travel to Reading.

The real issue here isn't the lack of Oyster to Reading but the lack of railcards with contactless.
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Gatwick and even Heathrow have this issue, its more expensive to touch out than to not, passengers who want to go from, say Clapham to Salfords can spend less money by not touching out! I don't know whether you can call it fare dodging but its definitely a loophole to paying the full fare!
 
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TrainTube said:
I don't know whether you can call it fare dodging but its definitely a loophole to paying the full fare!
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You can call it fare dodging and the authorities will take a dim view of you when they catch up with it - in particular using CCTV footage to show that you actually travelled fraudulently.

An Oyster or Contactless card with many incomplete journeys will eventually be investigated or stopped.
 
TrainTube

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JonathanH said:
You can call it fare dodging and the authorities will take a dim view of you when they catch up with it - in particular using CCTV footage to show that you actually travelled fraudulently.

An Oyster or Contactless card with many incomplete journeys will eventually be investigated or stopped.
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Would they actually carry out this? I mean if they spot a trend of loads of people every day having incomplete journeys on that route, they would do something about it but if someone has several incomplete journeys I doubt they would go that far into investigation. Ticket gates would be a solution, however these need to be staffed and can be impractical in places like Salfords.
 
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TrainTube said:
Would they actually carry out this? I mean if they spot a trend of loads of people every day having incomplete journeys on that route, they would do something about it but if someone has several incomplete journeys I doubt they would go that far into investigation. Ticket gates would be a solution, however these need to be staffed and can be impractical in places like Salfords.
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Clearly not for a one off failure to touch out or perhaps once a month but doing it repeatedly must trigger something.

Of course, if you always touched in at Salfords in the morning on Contactless they would probably auto-complete your evening journey for you.

Salfords is not going to get ticket gates or even first-to-last staffing any time soon.
 
Skimpot flyer

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JonathanH said:
You can call it fare dodging and the authorities will take a dim view of you when they catch up with it - in particular using CCTV footage to show that you actually travelled fraudulently.

An Oyster or Contactless card with many incomplete journeys will eventually be investigated
or stopped.
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I have no doubt that a pattern of failing to touch out would be investigated, but a one-off occurrence?
If you board a train at a station where the gates are open, without a ticket, and are asked by an RPI to produce a ticket during your journey, it’s blatant fare evasion (assuming there were means to buy a ticket at your origin station).
Not touching out, after having correctly touched-in, incurs a maximum fare. If that fare is less than the correct fare due, is it a ‘strict liability’ scenario? I’m sure many people using PAYG Oyster have, on at least one occasion, forgotten to touch out. It might be hard to prove having *intent* to avoid the fare due, surely?
 
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Skimpot flyer said:
Not touching out, after having correctly touched-in, incurs a maximum fare. If that fare is less than the correct fare due, is it a ‘strict liability’ scenario? I’m sure many people using PAYG Oyster have, on at least one occasion, forgotten to touch out. It might be hard to prove having *intent* to avoid the fare due, surely?
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Using Contactless, the system will autocomplete a journey based on your usual pattern so a person 'forgetting' to touch out in the circumstances where they are trying to only pay the maximum fare may find the system assumes their journey anyway.
 
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MotorcycleAlan

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If you have been watching the Fare Dodgers series on TV, you will know that they have quite sofisticated ways of spotting fraudulent activity, and devote significant resources into trying to reduce it.
 
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hkstudent

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Skimpot flyer said:
I have no doubt that a pattern of failing to touch out would be investigated, but a one-off occurrence?
If you board a train at a station where the gates are open, without a ticket, and are asked by an RPI to produce a ticket during your journey, it’s blatant fare evasion (assuming there were means to buy a ticket at your origin station).
Not touching out, after having correctly touched-in, incurs a maximum fare. If that fare is less than the correct fare due, is it a ‘strict liability’ scenario? I’m sure many people using PAYG Oyster have, on at least one occasion, forgotten to touch out. It might be hard to prove having *intent* to avoid the fare due, surely?
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For technicality, can a revenue officer stop a passenger who didn't touch out at oyster validator (not barrier) outside of night door (out of station boundary)?
 
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JonathanH

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hkstudent said:
For technicality, can a revenue officer stop a passenger who didn't touch out at oyster validator (not barrier) outside of night door (out of station boundary)?
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Only if in sight of the reader.

For practical purposes, they need to observe whether
a) a passenger touches out (in which case they can't inspect the card anyway as the card is then 'not in the system')
b) does not touch out (in which case they will ask to see a paper ticket), or
c) the passenger touches out and the reader makes an error sound (in which case they clearly can intervene).
 
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Cdd89

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RE the above post about revenue inspectors listening for sounds, I’ve often thought it interesting that the tap-in and tap-out noise is the same, by the way. Other transport systems use different tones to make it clear (both to the passenger, and any inspectors).

Then again, since Contactless Cards don’t have the concept of an entry/exit upon touching a validator, I guess the idea is about 15 years too late! :)
 
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